A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer was assassinated outside his home in Tehran, Iranian state-owned Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.
According to the report, two assailants on a motorcycle fired five rounds at Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei who was sitting in his car in the heart of the capital.
Reports only identified Khodaei as a "holy shrine defender," a reference to Iranian advisers and military personnel of the IRGC's elite Quds Force extraterritorial ops arm who fight against extremist groups to protect Shi'ite sites in Syria and Iraq such as the Sunni Islamic State.
No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, as local security forces were pursuing the suspected assailants, state TV reported, without offering further details or giving a motive for the killing.
Pictures from the scene of the assassination, in which the victim was seen in a Kia Pride car, were published on Iranian channels. According to media reports in Tehran, the colonel's wife was the first to find him lifeless in his vehicle.
The IRGC defined the assassination as an "act of terrorism" perpetrated by "elements tied to the global arrogance", one of the terms Iran uses to describe the United States and Israel.
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Members of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force marching during a military parade in Tehran
(Photo: AP)
Meanwhile, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that members of an Israeli intelligence service network had been exposed and arrested by the IRGC.
"Under the guidance of the Zionist regime's intelligence service, the network attempted to steal and destroy personal and public property, kidnapping and obtaining fabricated confessions through a network of thugs," the IRGC public relations service said in a statement.
The powerful paramilitary group did not specify whether there was any connection between both incidents.